My journey to prefect Hearth Bread

[banhxeo76]

Re: My journey to prefect Hearth Bread

Tu,
The last 50# bag I bought was $34 through a local LA bread baking group. It was Central Milling Organic Artisan Bakers Craft, a blend of hard red wheat, 11.5% protein. The volume AP bags at Costco and Whole Foods have been reported to be from Central Milling, at least here in Cal. The 25Kg bag of Antimo Caputo pizza flour I bought from a local WF pizza restaurant. I asked if he?d sell me a bag and he gave me a great price, so my point is don?t overlook local retail bakers or warehouse stores as sources. WJW gets his at Costco or Sam?s Club or some such..

I should add the LA bread baking group orders a or several pallets at a time, once a month. Very nice people..

Southern Cali and New Orleans are completely two different market. We don't even have a Costco here in New Orleans and Sam's Club only carries AP bleached flour. I guess I could use AP bleached flour from Sam's but that flour does not contained enough of ash content for long fermentation to my liking and I rather not using any bleached flour.

Believe or not, New Orleans only has one traditional French Bakery that sell good sour dough and baguette. I guess I can try to buy some flour from this bakery but I have a feeling that they will hesitate to sell me a bag because they don't want to reveal what type of flour they use. However, I guess it doesn't hurt to ask.

Most of the bread that are produced here in New Orleans is rising French Bread. Rising French Bread is usualy made from AP bleached flour with commerical yeast and we mainly use that bread for po-boy sandwiches. Therefore, premuim flour does not come into this market because there is not a high demand for it. People don't visit New Orleans for bread, they come here for the seafood.

As far as starting a group in New Orleans like LA Bread Baking Group, I may give that a shot. However, New Orleans is a very small market (even smaller after Hurricane Katrina). Thanks for the suggestion.

[SCChris]

Re: My journey to prefect Hearth Bread

Give the bakery a try. I have found, so far, that most of the artisans aren't worried about competition and many are very happy to talk to rank amateurs like us.

Chris

[rsandler]

Re: My journey to prefect Hearth Bread

Indeed, I got a lead on a cheap source for Caputo Tipo 00 flour by walking into a local pizzeria and asking for their distributor. Both they--and the distributor, for that matter--were more amused than anything else, especially when I explained that "I built a brick oven in my back yard and need flour for it".

[WJW]

Re: My journey to prefect Hearth Bread

Loving this thread. Great discourse. Great info. Great bread.

Good job to all...especially to Tu for starting the thread.

I'm feeling a big bake coming on this weekend.

Bill

[texassourdough]

Re: My journey to prefect Hearth Bread

Burn, baby burn!

[SCChris]

Re: My journey to prefect Hearth Bread

Jay, you are a rabble rouser and instigator and just for that I'm going to bake!~

Chris


I needed to bake anyway.. ;-)

[banhxeo76]

Re: My journey to prefect Hearth Bread

ohhh heck, I might at well bake some bread this weekend since ya are planning on it.

[Laurentius]

Re: My journey to prefect Hearth Bread

I'm wid Dat! Saute onion, orange zest sour dough.

[eddieh70301]

Re: My journey to prefect Hearth Bread

Who Dat Ban!!
I'm jealous of the way you are turning out those nice looking loaves. And I'm envious of your WFO. Been wanting one but just cannot justify the cost.
I'm a newbie when it comes to dough so I'm still learning how to handle. Biggest problem is stretching and forming.
It's all fun. One day I'll get it right.

[banhxeo76]

Re: My journey to prefect Hearth Bread

Been wanting one but just cannot justify the cost.

After having a WFO, I can't justify not having one. Plently of people did their WFO cheap by buying material second hand from Restore Habital for Humanity or even Craiglist. I got almost all of my concrete blocks for free off of craiglist. If you just want a functional WFO and don't care about appearance, you can manage to build on a budget easily. Just have to be patience with gather your materials for the build.

[banhxeo76]

Re: My journey to prefect Hearth Bread

Hi Tu,

My Wife ordered both of the books (they come together as a pack) for my birthday they just arrived and look really good, time to start reading and baking

K. Dude, your wife......is a keeper!

Now, you will make a killer hearth loaves soon.

Here are some links of videos of Chad Robertson that could help you with the process.

Bay Village Bakery Makes French Levain Bread - Martha Stewart Food

Tartine Bread - YouTube

Chad Robertson masterclass i Meyers Madhus - YouTube

I am going to make some Olive Tartine bread with a cast iron combo cooker this weekend.

Just a side note in regard to the books, if you want to make Tartine's croissant, use the Liz's version because it is a lot better Chad's. Even though Chad's croissant has levain in the dough, Chad's croissant is very dry (not enough butter for my taste) compare to Liz's. It puzzles me that they have two different receipes for croissant because I am wondering which receipe are they using for their bakery.

[UtahBeehiver]

Re: My journey to prefect Hearth Bread

Tu,

Watching the video of Chad Robertson's I saw he was using Central Milling flour, it struck a cord so I Googled Central Milling, wow, this flour is made right in my backard, in Logan Utah, about a hour away!

Happy B-day Doug and good reading and good baking..........I'm still under two feet of snow in my yard, but it is warming up and will be able to get to my oven soon.

[banhxeo76]

Re: My journey to prefect Hearth Bread

Tu,

Watching the video of Chad Robertson's I saw he was using Central Milling flour, it struck a cord so I Googled Central Milling, wow, this flour is made right in my backard, in Logan Utah, about a hour away!

Russell,

When you visit New Orleans, can you pick up two 50 lb bags Central Milling Artisan Bread Flour for me?

[UtahBeehiver]

Re: My journey to prefect Hearth Bread

I'll sneak it in my luggage..........

[banhxeo76]

Re: My journey to prefect Hearth Bread

I tried Tartine Bread with Olive this past weekend and the result was not as good as I had expected to be. The holes in the crumb were not as good as I would like and this particular loaf seemed to be denser that I would like. I think I did too many different things for this bake which may contributed the failure. Instead of using bottle water like I do in the past, I used tap water. There is a high level of chlorine in New Orleans?s tap water because our water source is from the Mississippi River. In order to make that water drinkable, it has to be clean with a lot of different chemicals. I think the chlorine may have prevented the leaven from reaching its full potential. Second potential problem is that I used flour that has lower protein content. Since the flour that I used has lower protein, the dough has only 75% hydration rather than the usual 80% hydration which I normally use for high gluten flour. I don?t know if this may be the reason why the crumb was denser. The crumbs holes that I get from high gluten were unbelievable. Since this is a smaller batch, I was able to retard my dough in my refrigerator rather than my garage. Last, I used the cast iron cooker to bake this loaf in my gas oven. Any input is more than welcome.